Onslow County Schools and local law enforcement will participate in active-shooter training at Dixon Middle School this week.

Because Monday is a teacher workday, students will be absent from school grounds and teachers will be doing professional development off-campus, allowing local officials the opportunity to conduct mock drills, school officials said.

“Though this is a situation we hope will never occur, in order to be better prepared we must be proactive,” said Suzie Ulbrich, public information assistant, in a news release.

Onslow County Sheriff's Office and members of Jacksonville, Richlands, Holly Ridge and North Topsail Beach police departments will take part in the exercises.

The drills will allow the district to evaluate the current response plan for active-shooter scenarios, teach officers and first responders how to handle a live-shooter situation in a school and allow for the evaluation of officer and emergency medical team response, according to the news release.

Emergency and police vehicles will be parked outside the building with lights and sirens active at times throughout the day. Onslow County Emergency Services and first responders also will participate, according to Ulbrich.

To make the training as realistic as possible, blank rounds will be discharged in the school and weapons will be transported to and from the school. Exercises are planned from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Two groups will go through the exercises — one in the morning and another in the afternoon.

“We hope the advance notice to the community will alleviate alarm and avert a large volume of unnecessary emergency calls to dispatch and the school system,” Ulbrich said.

She said each department practices its own exercises within the district to prepare for active-shooter situations; however, Ulbrich said the training Monday will allow agencies to gain “firsthand knowledge and experience working together,” which would be the case in a real situation, allowing them to be better prepared.

“It will give us an opportunity to work through any kinks or issues and fine tune our response,” she said.

This is the first mock training exercise, but Ulbrich said it won't be the last; they plan to have more drills in the future.

“There was an Active Shooter Planning Committee formed with representatives from the school district and from these multiple agencies — they have been meeting regularly for more than a year,” Ulbrich said on Thursday, adding that the training was organized “because there's only so much you can accomplish in a classroom.”